


New Year

by Erimthar



Series: Claire and Elle [5]
Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Dress Up, Electricity, F/F, New Year's Eve, Public Nudity, Teleportation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 09:25:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3686967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erimthar/pseuds/Erimthar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire learns something important about Elle... and the world learns something important about them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year

**Author's Note:**

> The latest in my continuing series of post-TV show Eclaire stories. Refer to earlier stories in the series for details, but this one should stand on its own well enough. Takes place on New Year's Eve 2009/2010.

_**New Year’s Eve, 10:08 p.m.** _

“You’re being careful,” Claire’s father told her. “And when you’re being careful, I worry less. Which is to say, still a huge amount.”

“I’m always careful,” Claire said.

Noah gave her that steady stare with the expectant half-smile, that said _I’m going to give you the chance to say it first, so I don’t have to._

Claire sighed. “OK, I’m not always that careful. But Elle has been completely different since she came back. I mean, she’s still got that attitude… she’s not lobotomized or anything. But she’s not into hurting people anymore. Believe me, I’ve been close enough to her to know if she was.” _You have no idea_ , she added to herself with a secret smile.

“Elle was never very good at deception,” Noah admitted. “That’s one of the reasons she didn’t make it as a field agent. But the _other_ reason is that she’s a sociopath, Claire. She’s erratic, unpredictable, has no sense of morality that the rest of us would recognize, and as I recall, the last time I saw you two together she put a bullet in you. You nearly died.”

_I know… I was there. Unlike you_ , Claire thought. But what she said was, “You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

Her father looked at her and gave her that resigned sigh… one she was becoming quite familiar with lately. “You’re right,” he said. “I am. Going to have to trust you.”

“She’s in good hands with Karen, here,” said Lauren Gilmore—Noah’s former colleague at the Company, and current girlfriend. She had just at that moment reappeared out of the milling crowd in the hotel lobby, pulling Karen Roth along after her. In honor of the festivities, Lauren was wearing quite a shorter skirt than Claire had ever seen her in before. She had lovely legs for a mom-aged woman. Karen, of course, was dressed in her usual businesslike pants-suit. The top two buttons of her blouse were undone, but whether that was New Year’s Eve flirtiness or just being too warm in a large crowd, Claire couldn’t say.

“I’m flattered by your confidence,” Karen said.

“Of course, when we were partners at the Company, trusting you was pretty much the only option available. When you have a partner who can detect any movement in the area— _no matter how tiny_ —there’s not much room for keeping secrets.”

“Oh, admit it,” Karen said. “You loved our little road trips together.”

“I do admit it. Nobody could hide from us and nobody could sneak up on us. Also, you have a really cool mix CD collection. The only problem was when you’d be driving, and instead of saying _Last rest stop up ahead, do you need to go to the bathroom?_ You’d say _I’m stopping up ahead, because you need to go to the bathroom._ ”

“You contract certain muscles when you’re holding it in, and you would always get too distracted to say anything. Then we’d wind up in the middle of the desert, with you squatting by the side of the road with your pants down, hoping no trucks came by.”

“That only happened once!” Lauren protested. “And no trucks did come by.”

“I can’t imagine how the Company failed with such crack operatives,” Noah said. “By the way, Karen, last time I heard you were charging six figures for your consulting services. Unless re-shelving books at the university library pays a lot better than it did when I was in school, I’m not sure how Claire-Bear here manages to swing it.”

Karen shrugged. “Maybe I’ve reached a point where I’d rather be happy than rich.”

“Easy to say when you’re already rich, eh?” Lauren said with a grin, nudging her ex-partner with her elbow.

“Besides,” Claire said, “Elle is the sole legal heir of a man who could turn stuff into gold by touching it.”

That stopped the coversation for a moment.

“Your daughter here is pretty cagey, Agent Bennet,” Karen said. “She’s her father’s daughter. And Lauren: how easy is it to change her father’s mind about something once he’s got the bit in his teeth?”

“Ha!” Lauren replied.

“I rest my case. But I will take good care of her, Noah. And I can vouch for Elle, too. I know she’s got a history, but nowadays she’s more of a naughty angel than the naughty devil she was.” Karen gave Claire a look and a smile.

“Okay,” Noah said. “I know when to quit.” Claire raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to make an observation. “ _This time_ , I know when to quit,” he amended. “Lauren and I will be out there in the crowd enjoying ourselves. Your mother is somewhere around too, with her new boyfriend.”

“Ned Flanders?”

“Be nice. You might have trouble getting cell reception in this crowd on New Year’s Eve, but try either or both of us if you need to.”

“I have a satellite phone,” Claire said, pulling it out of her purse and jiggling it for him to see.

He looked at it and sighed. “Of course you do. Is Elle’s pink too?”

“Blue. Elle hates pink things.” _Well, she does like_ some _pink things_ , Claire added in the privacy of her mind, and blushed.

“Then we’ll see you for dinner tomorrow?”

“Spiral-cut ham, potatoes au gratin, green-bean casserole and fruit salad,” Lauren said. “Bring Elle.”

Noah glared at her.

Karen chuckled and turned to Claire. “Let’s head upstairs, boss,” she said. “Time to get to work.”

 

_**New Year’s Eve, 10:19 p.m.** _

One of the things Elle’s inheritance had paid for was a very nice hotel suite right on the square where the New Year’s Eve celebration was happening. The balcony offered an excellent view of the crowd down below, surging around a stage where various bands had been performing all evening. In the middle of it all was the inevitable brightly-lit tower, topped by a sparkly star that would descend to count off the final seconds before midnight.

Karen and Claire arrived to find several familiar faces already there. Elle was sitting on the sofa playing with her phone, but at the sight of Claire she put it away, smiled, and patted the seat next to her. Claire sat down and gave her girlfriend a quick kiss.

“Is that the best you can do?” Elle teased her. “I hope you’re just saving the good stuff for midnight.”

“You’ll find out,” Claire replied with a wicked grin.

Elle was wearing a pretty black outfit with white ruffles, which nicely complemented the one Claire had on.

“Let’s get this stuff over with,” came a female voice from out on the balcony. “I wanna go dancing.”

The voice’s owner came into the room, shimmying and bopping to the beat of the music coming from down below. Green Fairy (she’d answer to no other name, though she accepted “Green” for short) was a loopy free spirit, but a sweetheart. She’d been one of Karen’s first recruits for the new “Company” they’d been putting together, and her power to put people into an instant, deep sleep had come in very handy on many occasions, while allowing them to avoid a great deal of violence.

Green was wearing high-heeled boots, silver tights, a pretty green velvet jacket, and a matching beret atop her shaggy retro-New-Wave blonde hairstyle. She was not a girl for half-measures when it came to fashion, especially when there was fun waiting to be had.

The final occupant of the suite was a beautiful young black woman Claire had never met before, dressed in tight black jeans and a fuzzy red-green-and-black sweater. Karen introduced her as Aziza.

“If everything goes right tonight,” Karen told Green, “we’ll all be done and dancing and drinking and kissing our various kiss-people by midnight. If not, nobody will be doing any dancing because there won’t be any power.”

“Some people just can’t look at a party without trying to poop it,” Green pouted.

“And as you all know, this particular party-pooper is a character calling himself Blackest Night. That’s a comic book reference…”

“You know comic books?” Elle asked her, surprised.

“No. I know Google. Anyway, Blackest Night is indeed a nerd. His real name is Adam Mezvinsky, he’s 18 years old, and he has the power to suppress the power grid in a radius of almost half a mile around himself.”

“Hate him already,” Elle muttered, letting her own electricity play across her fingertips.

“This guy’s plan is to shut down all the power in this area sometime before midnight. He’ll pretend he’s making an environmentalist statement about the evils of excessive power consumption, but in reality he’s just a troublemaker looking for attention.”

“How do you know all this?” Claire asked.

“Because I’ve been working with his sister. Goth chick named Magdalene. She also helped me bug her brother’s phone, which is how I know what he’s planning tonight.”

“Bugging phones, turning sister against brother… you’re a regular Veronica Mars,” Elle said with a grin. “Only not quite as hot.”

“Yes she is hot,” Green protested. “Karen is beautiful.”

“She does have that sexy TV detective look going on,” Elle admitted.

“Ahem,” said the subject of the conversation. “If you two lesbians could please focus on the job at hand, rather than my hotness or notness…”

“I’m not a lesbian,” Green said promptly.

“I am,” Elle said, and kissed Claire’s blushing cheek.

“You banged Sylar,” Green reminded her.

“Which was one very good reason for turning gay,” Elle replied. “Although I did eventually find a much better reason.”

“…And that’s very sweet,” Karen continued gamely, “but our task for the evening is to stop Mr. Mezvinsky before he can disrupt things. I’ve got a lock on his phone, and know that he’s on one of the rooftops on the other side of the square. The idea is for Green and I to teleport over there, put him to sleep, and bring him back here.”

“Teleport? How?” Claire asked.

“That’s where Aziza comes in.” The girl in question smiled and waved at them. “Now, she’s a really good teleporter, I’ve worked with her before and I trust her completely. But… there are a couple of little quirks to her power. Aziza, maybe you’d be better at explaining it?”

“Sure. My power has a couple of really big advantages, and one disadvantage. One advantage is that I can teleport any number of people, as long as they’re touching each other and at least one of them is touching me. Another one is that if you ‘port with me, you heal up any injuries you had. Your body puts itself back together in perfect condition when you get where you’re going.”

“Those are pretty damn good advantages,” Elle admitted.

“Yep. Now the disadvantage. I can only teleport living things.”

“That’s not so bad,” Claire shrugged. “So it’s kind of inconvenient not to be able to carry stuff with you, like bags or weapons or…”

“Clothes,” Aziza concluded flatly.

There were a few seconds of dead silence in the room.

“Oh,” said Claire. “Oh, you’ve _gotta_ be kidding.”

“Nope,” Aziza assured her. “It’s naked or nothing.”

“So when do we leave?” Green asked, looking around.

“It’s okay, Claire,” Karen said. “You don’t have to do it. You’ll be staying here at HQ to keep an eye on things and get help if anything goes wrong. And Elle, you’ll stay here too unless the power actually goes out. If it does, there’s a hospital just a couple of blocks from here that will be in big trouble. I’ll have Aziza come back and take you over there, where you’ll have to use your ability to power things until the current comes back on. Understand?”

“Sure thing,” Elle replied.

“We’d better get to it, then. We don’t know exactly when Blackest Night is planning to make his move, but it’s not long until midnight. Aziza, are you ready?”

“I’m ready. You ladies might want to remove any jewelry you’ve got on… save you from having to search around for it on the carpet when you get back. If you’re carrying anything breakable you’ll want to put that down, too.”

“I’ve got a couple of crowns on my back teeth,” Green said.

“That’ll be fine. Anything inside your body will come with you. Dental work, contact lenses if you keep your eyes closed, tattoo ink, the food you ate today.”

“Ick,” interjected Green.

“In fact, you can take small objects with you if you can fit them inside your mouth. Or, you know, up inside your…”

“ _Ick_ ,” said Green.

Karen took Claire aside. “Claire, in my briefcase over there on the table is the information we were looking for. Hopefully everything will go smoothly tonight, and while we’re gone, you might want to take the time to read the note I left on top of the other files. I think you’re going to find it very interesting... I know I did. I’ll let you decide if and when you want to tell Elle about it. It’s going to be pretty disturbing for her.”

Claire nodded.

“We’re ready, Aziza,” Karen called.

“Alright, ladies,” Aziza said, stepping in between Karen and Green. “Give me your hands.”

“You know the procedure if we’re not back within fifteen minutes,” Karen said to Claire.

“Got it.”

“On three,” said Aziza. “One… two…”

She, Karen, and Green vanished. Their outfits remained behind, standing there in midair for a split second before falling into a trio of heaps on the floor.

Elle giggled at the sight. “That is so sexy,” she said. “Wanna fool around?” She looked at Claire and licked her lips suggestively.

“I told you, I’m saving myself for midnight,” Claire said demurely. “And don’t tell me you don’t have something special planned for then, Miss Dress-Up.”

“Hmph,” said Elle. “I might. I might just have something special planned. But right now, I’m pretending to be mad at you.” She picked up her phone and started playing with it again, turning her back on Claire dramatically.

Claire waited until Elle was engrossed with her game or app or whatever, then went over and quietly snapped Karen’s briefcase open. There were several sheaves of paper clipped together into bundles, and on top of it all was a letter with “CLAIRE---“ written at the top in big letters. She took the letter out and began to read it.

 

_**New Year’s Eve, 10:39 p.m.** _

_Claire,_ the letter began, _in this briefcase are copies of all the Primatech files we could find that directly deal with Elle. (Lauren was a great help in getting many of these.)_

_When I met you and Elle at the start of our working relationship, there were several things about Elle’s recent history that didn’t add up for me._

_I knew her a bit when I worked for the Company… Elle was a teenager then, and spent most of her time around the offices. My impression of her then was that she was somewhat immature, irresponsible, moody, and a bit of a bully at times._

_But a sociopath? No._

_In fact, she was just about what I would have expected for a young woman growing up in such a dysfunctional environment, both personally and professionally. Her mother was absent, and her father was not a good man._

“So, Pom-Pom,” Elle called from across the room, jerking Claire’s attention away from the letter. “Which talk did your dad give you tonight. The _I don’t think you should try to juggle college with bagging-and-tagging_ one, or the _stay away from that crazy Elle_ one?”

“More of the second,” Claire told her. “We already had the first one. I told him I’m perfectly capable of doing this stuff on weekends and vacations, and you and Karen and the others can hold things down when I’m not around.”

“And about the other thing?” Elle stopped fiddling with her phone and turned to look at Claire.

“I told him if he can have crazy friends, so can I.”

Elle smiled at her. “He hates my guts.”

“I think he’s pretty indifferent to your guts, actually. But he hasn’t gotten as close to them as I have.”

“Rrrrrr,” said Elle. “Midnight’s coming, Claire. And then, so are you.”

Claire smiled and shook her head and tried to concentrate on her reading.

… _For now, I’ll just give you the facts as indicated in these records, incomplete as they are. Several years after I left the Company, Elle was sent out into the field as an operative. One of her first assignments was spying on you at your school in Texas, as you already know. Another involved trying to bring Sylar in._

_She was not a successful field agent. But her father was not the sort of man to allow such a long-term project to simply fizzle out. His opinion was that she was too cautious and hesitant and too held back by her feelings, so he decided to fix that._

_To put it bluntly, Bob Bishop had Elle’s mind tampered with to turn her into a sociopath, unable to define right and wrong for herself, and depending on him to do so for her. Her memories were altered to make her think she’d always been that way. Every memory she had of having accidents with her power (and there were lots of those) were instead changed into memories of rage and violence and attack. I don’t know who did the actual tampering. It wasn’t the Haitian. My guess would be Maury Parkman, but I have no proof of that._

_A cover story was cooked up involving childhood experiments taken too far, and that was that… Bob Bishop had created his own private human weapon, completely dependent on him._

_All of this happened a little over two years before you and Elle first met._

Just at that moment, all of the lights went out, both in the hotel room and in the square outside. The music stopped suddenly, and the only sound was the faint roar of protest and confusion from the crowd in the street below.

“Crap, crap, crap.” said Elle from somewhere in the darkness.

“Crap is right,” Claire muttered to herself, but she wasn’t talking about the power outage.

In a moment, Aziza appeared in the dark room, visible only as a lithe, naked silhouette against the balcony doors. “Elle,” she called, “we’ve got to go. Green knocked the dude out, but he shut off the power before she could get him. With him unconscious, the power should come back on in a few minutes, but that’s gonna be a bad few minutes for the people in that hospital.”

“Okay, coming,” Elle said, trying to find her way over to Aziza by phonelight. “ _Ow_. Fuck,” she said, tripping on something. “You know, this isn’t how I was planning to get naked tonight.”

“Just relax and try to enjoy it,” Aziza told her brightly. “I do.”

“BRB, Claire,” Elle said. “You know, if you had any sense of fairness, you’d be waiting for us nude when we all got back. Thinkin’ you’re better than us with all your high-and-mighty clothes-wearing…”

“I’ll consider it,” Claire promised, not considering it. “Be careful, Storm.”

“Why start now?” Elle replied, and then they blinked out of sight. Claire heard Elle’s dress slump to the floor with the others.

_Naked teleporting_ , Claire thought. _I think these women are messing with me_. She found her phone in her purse, lit it up, and continued reading.

_Whoever did this to Elle accomplished it by causing highly targeted damage to her prefrontal cortex, crippling her ability to feel empathy or control her emotions. It wasn’t a complete or thorough job, and she must have had flashes of her old self pushing through at times… maybe her own electricity even helped restore some of the damaged neural pathways temporarily._

_In any case, when you arranged to have her brought back to life, the process created a brand-new body for her from her genetic code. That means any damage that happened to her old body during her old life wouldn’t be present in the new one. No scars, no old injuries, no dental work or tattoos or piercings… and no brain damage either._

_But the false memories would still be there. The Elle you brought back has a perfectly normal brain, but has memories of having been a sociopath all her life. It must be confusing and frightening for her, to say the least._

_It’s going to be hard for her to accept that her own father did these things to her. If anyone can help her through that, it’s you. But I’ll let you decide when and how to tell her about it. I’m here for you both, if you need any help._

_Karen_

Claire finished reading, turned off her book light, and sat back in the darkness to think. Which was worse? The old story, in which Bob Bishop had his daughter tortured into insanity as a child, or the new one in which he’d deliberately had her brain damaged and then poisoned any happy memories she might have had of her childhood and past life.

She hardly noticed when the lights came back on. The sudden blast of sound from outside, and the cheering of the crowd, brought her out of her reverie just in time to see Elle and Aziza pop into existence in the room.

Elle was adorably trying to cover up, arms across her breasts and hands over her crotch. She grinned as she made eye contact with Claire.

“Not until midnight, remember?” she teased. “You can oogle Aziza here while you wait. She’s got a hot little bod, doesn’t she?”

Aziza, who wasn’t making the slightest attempt to cover up, rolled her eyes. “Pffft. Yeah, right.” Then she vanished again.

The sight of a naked Elle pretending to be modest was possibly the sexiest thing Claire had ever seen, but she gallantly averted her eyes while Elle retrieved her dress (no underwear to collect, apparently) and slipped behind a chair to put it on.

“So how was the hospital?” Claire asked.

“Dark,” Elle replied from behind the chair, “except for the emergency lights. And confusing. The generators were out, too. Doctors and nurses and orderlies were running around, hand-pumping respirators and stuff. Most of them were too busy even to notice two naked girls walking through the halls looking for the electrical junction.”

“Wow. Things _must_ have been crazy, then. I think if Satan himself was standing right in front of me, you and Aziza with your clothes off would distract me.”

Elle popped back up from her hiding place, now fully clothed once again, and stepped into her shoes. “One old guy laying on a gurney in the hallway looked at us – naked blonde chick and naked black chick – and said, ‘Are you the angels of good and evil?’ And Aziza just looked at him and said ‘Just because she’s blonde doesn’t mean she’s evil,’ and we giggled. I think we really confused him.”

Elle took a deep breath and plopped down on the sofa. “So we found the electrical junction, and I started pumping electricity into it, and the lights and all the hospital equipment flickered and came back on. I had to shoot a lot of lightning to keep it going, and it took nearly four minutes for the power to come back on by itself. I could feel myself drawing electricity out of the air and converting it into current… it feels really nice, like taking a hot shower. And Aziza was watching me do this, and she said, ‘Damn, you’re making me feel kinda gay myself right now,’ which was an interesting thought. And then we came back here.”

“So,” Claire concluded, “you saved a whole lot of people tonight.”

Elle grinned. “Maybe. Kinda. A few.”

“Some of those people would have died if the power stayed off any longer.”

“Think it’s a good start on making up for all the nasty shit I did before?”

“Do you have _any_ idea how much I love you?”

Elle swallowed hard and looked like she might either laugh or cry. “I don’t think I…”

And just then, the others popped into the room.

Claire tried not to stare at Karen and Green and Aziza – she really did – but it wasn’t easy. She cleared her throat and looked away.

One of these days, Claire was going to have to ask Karen what the deal was with all the beautiful women. Aren’t there any dudes or ugly girls with useful powers?

None of the women seemed in any hurry to get dressed, so Claire stopped pretending to avert her eyes. They’d brough another individual back with them: a young man lying on his back, sound asleep, stark naked (of course). It was hard to miss the rock-hard penis jutting up at the ceiling from between his thighs.

“So I take it this is Blackest Night?” Claire asked.

“This is Blackest Night,” Karen confirmed.

“Did you… um… catch him in the middle of something?” Elle inquired.

“No,” Green said. “He just got a good look at the three of us before I was able to put him out. I guess we should take this as a compliment?”

“He’s probably never seen a naked woman before who wasn’t made out of pixels,” Karen said. That seemed to remind her of her nudity, and she started fishing through her pile of clothes until she came up with a pair of white cotton briefs, which she stepped into. “The question is, what should we do with him? I think he’s more immature than dangerous, so I don’t know if turning him over to Noah and Lauren would be the right thing. Maybe we just need to scare him a little…”

There was a flash of light in the room. Green had retrieved her cell phone and snapped a picture of the prisoner in his compromised state. She held her phone out for the others to see. “Tell him if he fucks up again, this goes viral.”

They all grinned at each other.

A few moments later, as Karen was buttoning up her blouse and Aziza had gone into the bathroom to fetch the spare set of clothes they’d brought for their prisoner, Claire’s thoughts were wandering to other things. Elle caught her staring and winked at her.

“I guess we just need to drop Mr. Happy here off at the safehouse, and then we’re done for the evening,” Karen said.

“That’s pretty depressing,” said Green from out on the balcony.

“ _Green_ ,” Karen called. “Please come in here and put your clothes on.”

“But there’s a party going on out there,” Green pouted. She found her silver tights and began pulling them on. “Karen, you and I are both guy-less tonight. Wanna go out and see how drunk we can get in….” she picked up her phone, flipped it open and consulted the clock… “forty-two minutes?”

“Okay, but not too drunk. We’re sharing a room tonight and I don’t want to spend another night with you in the bathroom, rubbing your back while you spit up all those horrible fruity drinks you love so much.”

Green sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’ll be good,” she promised. “But you know I’ll always hold your hair whenever _you_ need to barf.”

“Thanks,” Karen said, smiling fondly at her.

“I don’t know if I can stand all this romance in the air,” Elle whispered into Claire’s ear.

“You’re nuts,” Claire told her. “So, you wanna go out and mingle with the crowd until midnight?”

“Sure,” Elle agreed. “And then, up to our room and to bed.”

“Bet you’ll sleep well tonight.”

“Bet I won’t,” Elle assured her. “And neither will you.”

 

_**New Year’s Eve, 11:46 p.m.** _

“Are you guys okay here?” Claire asked.

“Fine,” Karen said. “Loverboy will be out for a few hours. Aziza is going to teleport him to the safehouse. We’ll decide what to do with him in the morning. Meanwhile, I’ve got to take this one dancing.”

Green smiled and shimmied happily.

“Then if you don’t need us,” Claire said, “I think Elle and I will go out and join the crowd to ring in the new year.”

“You know,” said Elle, “we can see everything from our room upstairs. Remember… our nice warm private room with a nice soft bed in it… and my very special bag sitting in the bathroom waiting for us right now?”

Claire took Elle by the hand. “It’s traditional to go stand out there and count down while the glittery thing drops. And you know what a traditional kinda gal I am…”

“ _Suuuure_ you are.”

“Humor me on this one, Thunderstorm.”

Elle sighed dramatically. “Okay. But you have to buy me one of those pairs of sparkly 2010-shaped glasses.”

“Deal.”

“The ones that light up.”

“You got it.”

“Now you know how I feel hanging out with this silly Fairy,” Karen said.

“Heyyyyy,” protested the Fairy in question, and stopped dancing in place for all of two seconds.

“You kids go have fun,” Karen said, winking at Claire. “I’ll be in touch in the next day or two.”

 

_**New Year’s Eve, 11:58 p.m.** _

The brief power outage hadn’t damaged the crowd’s enthusiasm much. Claire found a good vantage point atop a cement bench not far from the main stage, after Elle helpfully evicted its previous occupants (a couple of drunken frat boys) with carefully placed zaps to the buttocks.

Claire took out her phone and sent off a quick text message.

“Is that to your dad or your mom?” Elle asked her.

“Both. In a manner of speaking.”

In a few moments the lighted star began its slow descent down the pole. Claire and Elle joined the rest of the revellers in calling out the numbers of the last few seconds.

Midnight arrived. The stage performed a light show as mini-fireworks shot into the sky and the giant viewscreen showed scenes of the cheering crowd.

Elle turned to Claire. “Now can we go back to…. _Mmmmmm_ ….”

The rest of the sentence was lost in the depths of Claire’s mouth as she took Elle’s head in both hands and kissed her, long and deep, right there on top of that bench.

After her initial moment of shock, Elle melted into the kiss.

“Pom-Pom,” she whispered after a few seconds. “Don’t you care that everyone is going to see us?”

“Everyone already has,” Claire whispered into her ear. “Look.”

Elle turned around and looked at the giant viewscreen above the stage… and saw her own face, and Claire’s, looking back out of it.

Stunned, Elle put her hands to her mouth. “ _Claire!_ ” she gasped. “Everybody just saw us…”

“Everybody here just saw us making out,” Claire agreed. “Yep. Must be ten thousand people.”

“But how… what…”

“The thousand dollars I paid the cameraman earlier this evening probably had something to do with it.”

Elle stared at her girlfriend, flabbergasted. “Your dad is out there. Your mom is out there… they saw us…”

“About time, huh?” Claire smiled at her.

Elle momentarily looked like she was about to cry, but she hadn’t turned into that much of a blubbery girly-girl yet. Instead, she smiled back at Claire.

“Claire Bennet,” she said, “We are going straight up to our room right now and you are not going to argue with me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Claire replied, fluttering her eyelashes.

Elle grabbed Claire firmly by the wrist and walked her straight over toward the hotel entrance.

 

_**New Year’s Day, 12:23 a.m.** _

Claire sat on the edge of the bed, facing the closed bathroom door, exactly where Elle had placed her. She fidgeted with nervous excitement. It was a holiday, and that meant Elle was going to play one of her sexy dress-up games.

Claire thought about what she’d learned tonight. She didn’t know whether Elle would be more relieved to learn that she wasn’t a psycho anymore, or devastated by what her father had done to her.

But that would have to wait for another time. There was a much different agenda on tap for this particular evening.

Claire remembered the last time she and Elle had spent the night together—on Christmas Eve Eve. (Christmas Eve itself had been a family night.) It had been in the secluded cabin in the mountains Claire had bought… the same place she’d taken Elle to recover after being brought back from the dead.

On Christmas Eve Eve, Elle had surprised Claire by the fireplace with an outfit consisting of green ankle boots, red-and-white candy striped thigh-high stockings, an incredibly short green pleather miniskirt with dangling jingle bells, a red bustier, and a Santa hat. In each hand, she’d carried one of those jumbo-sized peppermint sticks. Claire shivered as she thought about what Elle had done with those big peppermint sticks. _We both probably still taste like Christmas._

The bathroom door opened, and Elle strutted out and struck a pose. Claire took a deep breath and applauded as she ogled her way up her girlfriend.

Bare feet. Bare, beautiful legs. A white diaper—looked like a real one (did they make them that big?) fastened together with a big blue plastic safety pin, to which a little note was attached. A red-and-black sash reading _Happy New Year_ , running from her left shoulder diagonally down between her bare breasts to her right hip, and up around her back. Long black opera gloves, and a shiny black top hat.

“Baby New Year,” Claire concluded.

“That’s _Babe_ New Year,” Elle corrected, hands on hips.

“What does your note say?” Claire asked, pointing at the safety pin. Elle walked over next to Claire so she could read it.

**DO NOT OPEN UNTIL NEW YEAR!**

_(PS: Please open on New Year. I’m super horny. Love, Elle.)_

XXX OOO <~

“Okay,” Claire said, “I understand the X’s and O’s, but what’s that last symbol?”

Elle twisted around to look. “Oh. It’s a pair of open legs and a tongue.”

Claire giggled. “Real subtle, Elle Belle.”

Elle assumed a look of wide-eyed surprise. “You were expecting subtle from me? And on New Year’s Eve?”

“Hmmm. Hugs, kisses, and cunnilingus. You know, I think you might go three-for-three tonight.”

“Happy New Year!” Elle cried, thrusting her arms straight up. “But where’s your costume?”

“I don’t have one,” Claire admitted mournfully.

“I thought you’d wear the same one you did at Christmas.”

“I didn’t have one for Christmas either…”

“Sure you did.” Elle sat down in her lap and kissed her. “Naked cheerleader.”

“ _Ooooh_ , that costume.” Claire grinned. “Yeah, I’m wearing it under my clothes. Um, you don’t happen to have any of those big peppermint sticks left, do you?”

“Got a whole box of ‘em,” Elle said. “Looking to get your cherry busted again, Miss Perpetual Virgin?” Claire blushed furiously.

“But not tonight,” Elle told her. “Tonight, I have a special surprise.” She leaned in close and whispered in Claire’s ear. “Close your eyes and stick out your tongue.”

“Tongues again?” Claire giggled. She did as instructed.

She felt the tip of Elle’s tongue touch the tip of her own, and was just about to go in for a kiss when she felt a sharp zap of electricity in her mouth. She squeaked and jumped away.

She opened her eyes and stared in amazement at Elle, who grinned back at her. “You… you learned to shoot your electricity out through your _tongue_?”

“Uh-huh. It took a lot of practice. When I used to try, I would just gag myself, and I figured it wouldn’t be too sexy for me to throw up all over your belly. But the secret is to keep my tongue away from the roof of my mouth, and breathe through my nose, and only let a little current out at a time…hey!”

She giggled as Claire unceremoniously dumped her out of her lap, and started fumbling with her dress, trying to get it off as quickly as possible. “Omigod,” Claire murmured, her voice trembling with excitement. “Omigod. Omigod…”

Elle pounced on top of her, laying her out on her back on the bed with her arms pinned down. “Easy there, you little electric sex addict, you. We’ve got all night. It’s gonna be a long one, and we’re gonna use every minute of it. No sleep for you until sunrise.”

Claire whimpered in (mostly) mock terror as she imagined the things Elle was going to do to her. When Elle flooded her with her electricity, it brought every nerve ending in her body to life. Every pain receptor, and every pleasure receptor… only she couldn’t feel the pain part. For anyone else, Elle’s power would be death—but for Claire and Claire alone, it was ecstasy. It was an intimacy that only the two of them could share, and Claire loved it more than she could ever tell her lover in words.

Elle lay down on top of her and snuggled close. “I love you for what you did tonight, Pom-Pom,” she murmured. “I mean, I loved you before, but I love you especially more now. Maybe I should put on my Red Sonja chainmail bikini, though? It might be better for blocking a bullet if your dad comes in here to shoot me.”

“I think he’d be terrified to come in this room right now,” Claire laughed. “With good reason.”

“Here’s hoping,” Elle said. “That reminds me… three weeks until college starts up again, right? Are you going to tell your ‘rents about us and Gretchen?”

Gretchen. “Mmmmm. I think maybe we should give them time to recover from one heart attack before we give them another one.”

“You’re right,” Elle agreed. She slipped her hand up under Claire’ skirt. “The only shock for the rest of tonight will be this one.” Claire jumped and squealed as Elle zapped her. “And this one. And maybe this one…”

Claire’s cries rang in the new year as love and lightning took her.

 

 


End file.
